First the good news.
I know the basketball team faltered down the stretch and
lost to Yale last night in the CIT quarterfinals. But the game was great to
watch at Levien and the crowd was great too. I got there a little late and
stood at the back of the student section, but had a great time anyway.
Now the bad news, the sad news, and the scary news.
Yesterday’s decision by the Chicago regional NLRB to allow
Northwestern football players to unionize is the end of college sports as we
know it. If the decision is struck down, then fine, but if not we can say
goodbye to the varsity sports that really matter… and that includes the Ivies.
We’re no fools. We know that big-time college sports haven’t
been about real students for a long, long time. But the illusion of the top
players and teams being filled with actual students is important. Once fans are
presented with the option of rooting for players who are getting salaries and
are just hired guns, you will see the interest wane. Northwestern, Stanford,
and Duke will be among the first schools to disband their football programs
when faced with the prospect of having to pay players. The NCAA will become
totally meaningless and will also disband. And without an NCAA, or major
college programs encouraging thousands of kids to play high school sports for
eventual college scholarships, all of competitive varsity sports will eventually
go away. They will be replaced with somewhat popular minor pro leagues, but they won’t
draw big crowds or the big TV money.
Once again, unions and overzealous lawyers will have
destroyed a good American tradition. I
know that much of big time college sports was rotten to the core, but this is
not the way to fix it. Paying players might seem only fair to a lot of us, and
better forms of compensation were indeed warranted, but union wages are not the
answer and I have the list of thousands of closed American factories to prove
it.
My gut feeling is that the athletes and their lawyers
pushing this don’t really want salaries. They want some kind of share of the
endorsement money, or expanded student services. But the NLRB has inadvertently
called their bluff and now they might just burn down D-1 sports forever.
If you think the Ivies will profit or even be immune to all
of this, you’re sadly wrong.
Again, without a big time college recruiting machine, the
number of quality high school students to recruit at our level will disappear. With
big time FBS schools shuttering their programs, the Ivy presidents will finally
have a good argument for eliminating varsity sports at their schools as well. I
can just hear Lee Bollinger saying: “If Alabama no longer has football, I don’t
see how Columbia can either!”
And that’s where we are folks. The clock is ticking. Either
this decision is overturned or college
sports are destroyed.
23 comments:
A union for college athletes is absurd and won't happen. Remember that the NLRB at present is totally corrupt, and the Chicago regional panel probably moreso than any. I read the Northwestern effort is underwritten by the United Steelworkers Union. I'm a staunch supporter of honest unionism, which is virtually extinct these days. This venture indicates that unions are collapsing under the weight of their corruption if they have to resort to enlisting
college athletes. If the NLRB chiefs in Washington don't kill this, the Supreme Court will.
Chick is probably right... but stranger things have happened. I think we can agree that if this isn't overturned, it's all over.
Not really, since even if stands, the ruling would only apply to private, not public, universities. The effect on football would be limited to only a few programs--and certainly not Alabama.
The people who started the movement/union need to get their priorities in order. If they don't like the system the way it is, don't participate. The NCAA definitely needs reform. That is where their efforts needed to be applied, not in self serving BS.
I apologize in advance, but I can't help it. Here goes.
Given our performance level, we will never have to pay a dime for football.
It may even become a profit center.
A few decades ago, they started an alumni fundraising plan that bound the alums to donating $100 for every game the football team won in the most recent season.
I know more than a few people who attended colleges in Europe. And on one BIG level, all attest that it can get pretty boring on campus. Edinburgh doesn't even play St. Andrews in caber tossing, and students in France are prouder of having gotten into a course of study at the Sorbonne than they ever are in actually being on campus there. School "spirit," in other words, is non-existent. For better or worse.
But many people (yes, usually lefties) applaud the "European model" for academic life, and they could not care one bit about intercollegiate sports.(Even in the UK, emphasis is placed on playing for one's "house," meaning their residential college.) Well, carried to it slogical extreme, these folks will be overjoyed by the institution of this model.
Interestingly the Northwestern effort was backed by the steelworkers' union. As unions descend somewhat into political irrelevance, they seem to be seeking new "causes" and fights (even when they lose the first time, as at that Tennessee auto plant) in an attempt to hold on to power. But this one strikes me as a shameful waste of time, and it also places absolutely no value, in this particular instance, on the cost and subsequent benefits of having a degree from Northwestern. Let us also admit that Northwestern is hardly an NFL training camp during its best seasons.
True, the NLRB's jurisdiction is only over private employers so should this nonsense prevail, all the public state U's would be exempt. So only Stanford, Notre Dame, Boston College, USC and similar top-tier teams would be affected, ALONG with private Patriot League teams like Fordham but not the Ivies....but what about Cornell? Don't they have a public stake also?
In the PAC, USC and Stanford would have to unionize but the rest of the conference wouldn't. What a silly mess,
spurred by radical unions that have no interest in sports.
The lawsuit under the federal antitrust laws brought in federal court in NJ on behalf of a class of D1 athletes by Columbia alum Jeff Kessler should give the NCAA much more concern that the NLRB proceedings.
Nice article on possible recruit Jackson Davis...
http://www.courier-journal.com/story/recruiting/2014/03/19/jackson-davis-cuts-list/6610043/
once upon a time
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/march-madness-excitement-at-off-broadway-prices/2014/03/27/f7b73f3e-b5ec-11e3-b899-20667de76985_story.html
Jackson Davis would be a wonderful get, but while Columbia is on his final list of six, the other five are scholarship programs, and how often do we prevail in that situation? One optimistic note is the mother saying he wants to be able to play and make an impact right away...sounds good for CU, but ???
Re Jackson Davis, another possible incentive is that he says he wants to work in finance, and Penn isn't on his list.
I suspect that Penn basketball will hit a dry patch in recruiting while the Jerome Allen regime is in place, especially in light of the serious disciplinary problems on the current team.
Amazing to me, along the lines of old lion's post above, that at least ne particular Penn player wasn't either tossed from the team altogether or at least suspended for some games.. This sort of thing does not happen on Kyle Smith's well-coached team.
Meanwhile our baseball team is off to a roaring start, with two 4-0 shut outs over a good Brown team up at Baker yesterday. Winning begets winning.
Baseball hosts Yale today, Tues. On the Ivy Digital Net.
oldlion, "loose lips sink ships" :)
(swept by Yale)
Or should I say, "Pride goeth before the fall."
And Yale is iin the CIT final as well. Good day for Yale, not so much for this Old Lion.
Jake and others,who followed the interview with Mangurian yesterday?
Yes, I read the twitter feed and it was a miracle of timing since I rarely go on that site. It is a little confusingto find. You have to go to the feed #AskMangurian. The trick is expanding each question so you see the responses. Twitter is a poorly designed site (surprised that such junk could be worth billions? don't be. everything in silicon valley is crap)
I thought he was rather honest with his replies. Though it took him a while to warm up. He even replied to my question about the offense.
A pretty good article on the college labor issue.
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